The Age of the Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Business Network

Why a Supply Chain Orchestration Platform is Critical to Success

The global supply chain is full of uncertainty – political, environmental, and otherwise.

Companies rely on their multi-enterprise supply chain business networks to stay flexible; when unexpected events occur, it’s important to have options.

At the same time, those partnerships are only as effective as the technology in place to leverage them.

Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms help industry leaders dynamically and intelligently partner with their network to stay resilient, adaptive, and better mitigate risk and minimize disruption.

As a holistic solution, it offers rich capabilities ranging from visibility and control to logistics and order management that spans all order types and all order flows.

Introduction

The term “supply chain” does little to relate to the complexity of the full order-to-delivery process. Less of a singular, one-dimensional chain, today the industry has evolved into B2B ecosystems, wherein multiple external parties collaborate on a variety of different functions, from sourcing to manufacturing to warehousing and distribution to shipping and last-mile delivery. According to Gartner;

“Multienterprise supply chain business networks (MESCBNs) support a community of trading partners - of any tier and type within a network - that need to coordinate and execute supply chain processes across multiple enterprises.”

Most companies outsource various functions of the supply chain as they focus on enhancing their core competencies. While this move offers significant advantages – such as access to superior, specialized resources – it also means that supply chain planning and execution becomes a group activity.

In order to be effective, multi-party collaborations must operate on one version of the truth: Two-way, real-time visibility and transparency into critical data are paramount.